Noun Modification in Tibeto-Burman Languages 1

Studies in Language, 1992

2011

Nominalization has long been recognized as one of the driving processes of Tibeto-Burman syntax and syntactic change. A pervasive and recurrent process in the family is the replacement of old finite clause structures with new constructions based on nominalizations. TB languages repeatedly innovate new, marked clausal constructions with a nominalized verb and finite copula. The process is exemplified through case studies from Tibetan, Sunwar (from the Kiranti branch of TB), and the Kuki-Chin branch. Frequently such constructions lose their marked status and become the ordinary finite construction, resulting in the creation of new verbal categories and systems. Many TB verbal systems transparently reflect this origin, for example Modern Tibetan tense/aspect forms like -pa yin, -pa red, both consisting of the nominalizer -pa in construction with an equational copula. As such a construction becomes more opaque, a language may be left with a semantically empty final particle, reflecting an erstwhile nominalizer or copula. The prevalence of such final particles in the family is evidence of the pervasiveness of the phenomenon which is described in this paper.

Nepalese Linguistics, Vol.21, pp. 125-134, 2004

Language and Linguistics, 2008

Typological Studies in Language, 2017

Noun-Modifying Clause Constructions in Languages of Eurasia: Rethinking Theoretical and Geographical Boundaries (NMCCLE) is a volume in the Typological Studies in Languages series (series editors: Spike Gilda and Fernando Zúñiga) edited by Yoshiko Matsumoto, Bernard Comrie, and Peter Sells, three renowned linguists whose collective expertise spans broad aspects of cross-linguistic research. NMCCLE is a product of their nearly decade-long collaborative project that involved numerous contributors who are experts in various Eurasian languages and have different theoretical backgrounds. It offers a rich array of in-depth studies on the varied properties of noun-modifying clause constructions (NMCCs) in the languages under consideration, based on the general noun-modifying clause construction (GNMCC) proposed as a new category of language property. Their investigation is also unique in that the Japanese GNMCC serves as a "yardstick" for examining NMCCs in other languages. Clausal noun-modifying constructions, which are commonly observed across various languages, have attracted wide attention in linguistic research. Over the last four decades at least three major proposals on the examination of clausal noun modification have been put forward: Keenan and Comrie's (1977) noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH), Matsumoto's (1997) frame-semantic approach to analyzing Japanese noun-modifying constructions, and the crosslinguistic investigation of clausal noun modification using the category of GNMCC proposed in NMCCLE. Among the different types of noun modification, relative clauses are a wellresearched area. Based on their typological investigation of over 50 different languages, Keenan and Comrie (1977) proposed the NPAH, which suggests that there is a markedness order of different relative clause types that applies to all languages in the world. The NPAH predicts the availability of relativization in a language based on the syntactic role of the head noun modified by the relative clause: on the

Fourth International Conference on Sinology, 2012

Work by Matsumoto ( --b, 1997 on Japanese has shown that the traditionally assumed characteristics of relative clauses do not hold in Japanese, that the distinction between relative clause and noun complement does not explain all of the uses of the relevant forms found in Japanese, and that a single morphosyntactic construction (a finite clause modifying a head noun) in Japanese is generally used to convey meanings in English expressed not only by relative clauses and noun complements, but also by infinitival, gerundive, adjectival, and participial forms, often involving prepositions, e.g. steps to follow, the smell of frying rice, the year after applying, beautiful sky, and the change from buying groceries. In English the distinction between relative clause and noun complement is that in the relative clause construction an argument of the relative clause (whether overt or assumed) is coreferential with the head noun, whereas in the noun complement construction this is not the case. Semantically a relative clause either helps the hearer identify the referent of the head noun (restrictive-e.g. the boy who walked in) or adds pertinent information about the referent of the head noun (non--restrictive-e.g. my brother, who just got back from Chicago), whereas the head of a noun complement simply is a characterization of the modifying clause, e.g. the fact that he is president characterizes that he is president as a fact. In English these two seem structurally similar, but manifest different morphosyntactic behaviour: the head of a noun complement can be dropped, but the head of a relative clause cannot, and only the relative clause can take a relative pronoun. In contrast to the traditional definitions, Matsumoto ( --b, 1997 found many cases in Japanese where the semantic function of a clausal noun modifying construction is that of a restrictive relative clause, yet the head noun is not an argument of the modifying clause, as in (1) (Matsumoto 1997: 20):

This paper discusses relativization strategies used by South Asian languages, with the focus falling on relative-correlative constructions. The bi-clausal relative-correlative structure is believed to be native to Indo-Aryan languages and has been replicated by Austroasiatic, Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman languages of South Asia through contact and convergence, despite the non-Indic languages of the region already having a participial relativization strategy at their disposal. Various permutations of the relative-correlative construction are discussed and compared to the participial relativization strategies of South Asian languages, and functional reasons are proposed for its widespread diffusion and distribution.